Chris Zachariou

Chris Zachariou Poems

Waking up from a drunken stupor
she looks around her shabby room.

Ashtrays full, plates piled in the sink
...

impish fairies
bait the child
with handfuls
of red berries
...

The poet with unbridled thoughts
and the scent of fledgling sparrows
on her lips
rides bareback to the river
...

For many years now I live alone
in a tiny single room by the canal.
I have no photographs on the walls
there are no books on the shelves
...

In Alfacar
under the melancholy
shade of a cypress tree
the guns are resting.
...

Rise to the dizzy heights
my cherished one.
Dream the dreams
and think the thoughts
...

7.

Our only reality— words
their beauty the lovechild of minds alike.

Now a new world is dawning.
...

Men with God on their side
fly high in the burning skies.

Napalm death pours down
...

I see their names carved in stone
on marble crosses with roots of bone

trees dripping with death and tears
...

A fierce wind scorches Cordoba
tonight
lewd and shameful like a voracious lover.
...

I.

clandestine smiles and glances
meander to the little cinema
...

My Lord,
our covenant

"The Messiah
...

We close her eyes
we kiss her forehead
then darkness for eternity.
...

We talk of poets and white doves till sunrise
blushing anemones, chilled juice
and ice-cream and mother's apple pie.
...

Two by two, the crew
board the boat to El Dorado
with a rout of rusty knights
sitting at the captain's table.
...

Across the ocean
in a country far away
a moth cocooned
works night and day
...

Thank you

for the beauty
the word
...

Reflections of my lover
dancing on the frozen lake
echoed every night on the
walls of the grey scullery.
...

I whispered:
'There are many kinds
of oceans between us
I know but come';
...

A harbinger of woe—
his fearsome knock was heard at noon
on the tailor's door.
...

Chris Zachariou Biography

07 August 2019 At times, old insecurities come to the fore, hand in hand with wistful memories of past lovers, loss, death and grief. At other times, I have bitter quarrels with God late into the night about sin, redemption and child-death; and when solace will not come, in despair, I run for shelter to life's true confessional—poetry. I also post my poetry on: https: //www.poetrylovers.net/ https: //www.poetryvibes.com/ https: //allpoetry.com/Chris_Zachariou https: //www.cypruspoets.org/)

The Best Poem Of Chris Zachariou

A Shameless Thief

Waking up from a drunken stupor
she looks around her shabby room.

Ashtrays full, plates piled in the sink
and a mattress with soiled bed sheets
—her faithful and trusted servants—
torn from years of loveless coupling.

A quick shower behind the mouldy
curtain with cheap soap, cheap shampoo
and an even cheaper scent;
into a bra that's a size or three too small
and a skirt that's been too short for years.

She smokes a roll-up and drinks raki
until she hears her cue for work—
a ship's horn blowing in the distance.
Gasping for air, rank with stale tobacco
and laced with shattered dreams, she opens
her front door and waddles to the harbour.

She recalls her wrecked and wasted life.
First the fear, the panic and the shame
then the buzz, the laughter and the thrills;
until Time —deceitful and a shameless thief—
stole her youth away.

Each night brought a new assault.
Every morning she nursed
the battle scars from the night before
—a small blemish on her flawless skin,
a grey strand in her wild black mane—
until one day the face she saw in the mirror
was not her face anymore.

She gazes at the lilacs of the sea
and listens to the noise, savouring
the odours of all the sailors passing by.

Such a sweet aroma. Her head feels light
and maybe because of the bottle of raki
or the warmth of the late Mediterranean sun
she drifts into a rumbling reverie.

In her much loved and much-kissed body
all the hurt and pain are now gone.
Old lovers' faces rise in her wrinkled mind—
kings, Bedouins and sultans;
black, white and yellow faces, merge
and she is seventeen and beautiful again.

She dreams and writhes on a rotting bench
until a group of sailors come passing by.
They stop and stare at the old wreck and
—merciless youth— they jeer and mock her.

She wakes and hears their ridicule
the laughter and the heartless jibes.

With tears in her jaded eyes
and cursing the cruelty of the young
she takes the road to the sanctuary
of her seedy room, grieving for the day
that ended before it even had begun.

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